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What Are Triglycerides?

What Are Triglycerides?
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Updated on March 8, 2023
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Like HDL and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides are a type of fat found in your blood, and the most common form of body fat. They are produced and stored in fat cells after the body takes in extra calories. When your body needs energy, hormones convert these triglycerides into usable calories.

If you regularly eat more calories than you burn, you are more likely to have high triglyceride levels. Having high triglycerides can raise your risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

High triglyceride levels are associated with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome — a constellation of symptoms that includes obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

RELATED: 7 Facts About High Triglycerides You Should Know

Triglyceride Levels: What’s Healthy?

You can find out what your triglyceride levels are by asking your healthcare provider for a lipid panel, a type of simple blood test that measures both cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood.

Triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol are measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) of blood. A lipid panel also includes a total cholesterol count.

Your doctor may ask you to fast prior to having your blood drawn for the lipid panel.

The following numbers indicate the range of triglyceride levels for adults:

Normal: less than 150 mg/dL

Borderline high: 150 to 199 mg/dL

High: 200 to 499 mg/dL

Very high: 500 mg/dL and above

What Causes High Triglycerides?

Eating more calories than you burn consistently can raise your triglyceride levels above normal levels.

Foods particularly rich in saturated fat or highly processed carbohydrates can contribute to abnormal triglyceride levels. Consuming these calorie-rich, easy-to-break-down foods results in more easily released energy, which is then converted to triglycerides and stored in fat cells.

High triglycerides are also a symptom of poorly controlled type 2 diabetes.

Low levels of thyroid hormones and liver and kidney disease are also linked to high triglyceride levels. Some people may also have a genetic predisposition to high triglyceride levels known as familial hypertriglyceridemia.

Some prescription drugs — including beta-blockers, birth control pills, hormone replacement therapy, steroids, and diuretics — can also elevate your triglyceride levels.

Learn More About Surprising Causes of High Triglycerides

How to Reduce High Triglycerides

Typically, adopting healthy lifestyle choices can help you keep your triglyceride levels in check.

For example, your doctor may recommend:

Limit Sweets and Other Highly Processed Simple Carbohydrates Eating foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates, like white flour and white rice, can raise your triglycerides.

Swap Foods Rich in Saturated Fat for Vegetable Oil and Omega-3-Rich Foods Saturated fats, which are found in most animal and dairy products, can raise triglyceride levels. In addition, cooking with vegetable oils like olive oil and canola oil can help manage both high triglyceride and high cholesterol.

Limiting consumption of beef and pork and eating more foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon, canned sardines, and mackerel can also help manage high triglyceride.

Limit or Stop Drinking Alcohol High in both calories and sugar, drinking alcohol can increase your triglyceride levels, along with many other negative health effects.

Get Regular Exercise For optimal heart and general health, the American Heart Association recommends getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week, preferably split up over several days. If you’re new to a regular exercise routine, low-impact aerobic exercises are a good way to get started.

Maintain a Healthy Weight If you have high triglycerides, even a small amount of weight loss (in the 5- to 10-pound range) can lower your levels.

Medications That Lower Triglycerides

Sometimes, lifestyle changes alone may not lower your triglyceride levels. If that’s the case, your doctor will prescribe a medication, such as:

Statins Also known as HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, statins are a class of drugs that prevent cholesterol from forming in the liver. They are most effective at lowering LDL cholesterol, but can also lower triglycerides and increase HDL cholesterol.

Fish Oil In large doses, omega-3 fatty acids can help lower triglyceride levels. The most common supplement is over-the-counter fish oil, but omega-3 supplements are also available by prescription.

Fibrates These medications lower overall triglyceride levels by reducing the liver’s production of very-low-density lipoproteins, which are made up mostly of triglycerides. They include gemfibrozil (Lopid) and fenofibrate (TriCor).

Fibrates may increase your risk of side effects if taken with a statin.

Niacin Also known as nicotinic acid, niacin is a B vitamin that can raise HDL cholesterol while lowering levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides.

Your doctor may prescribe niacin if your triglyceride levels are higher than 500 mg/dL.

Since niacin can interact with other medications and may cause side effects, don’t take over-the-counter niacin without first discussing it with your doctor.

Learn More About Cholesterol-Lowering Medications

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Michael Cutler, DO, PhD

Medical Reviewer

Michael Cutler, DO, PhD, is a cardiac electrophysiologist at Intermountain Heart Rhythm Specialists in Salt Lake City, Utah. His research interests include understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmia, gene therapy for cardiac arrhythmias, neural control of the circulation in sleep apnea, role of exercise in health and disease, and improving the management of cardiac arrhythmias (i.e., atrial fibrillation).

He completed his BS and MS in exercise physiology and was a member of the track/cross country team at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Prior to attending medical school, Dr. Cutler was an adjunct clinical instructor in the College of Health at the University of Utah and also served on the Utah Governor’s Council on Health and Physical Fitness. He then attended the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth for medical school and for his PhD in cardiovascular physiology.

After medical school, Cutler entered the highly selective ABIM Research Pathway physician-scientist training program at the MetroHealth Campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. During this time, he completed his clinical training in internal medicine, cardiology and clinical cardiac electrophysiology, served as chief cardiology fellow, and received the Kenneth M. Rosen Fellowship in cardiac pacing and electrophysiology from the Heart Rhythm Society. Following residency and fellowship, Cutler accepted a position as an assistant professor of medicine at the MetroHealth Campus of Case Western Reserve University until he joined his current partners at Intermountain Heart Rhythm Specialists.

Cutler's research has received meritorious recognition from the American Physiological Society, the American Heart Association, and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Cutler has been an author on publications in journals such as Circulation, Circulation Research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and Nature. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, and clinical cardiac electrophysiology through the American Board of Internal Medicine.

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Patricia Kelly Yeo

Author

Patricia Kelly Yeo is a Los Angeles–based food and health journalist. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Business Insider, The Daily Beast, Bon Appetit, and Eater, among other outlets. She received a bachelor's degree in human biology and society from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a master's in journalism from the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. As a pre-med student in college, she conducted wet lab research at City of Hope, Cedars-Sinai, and UCLA.

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EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. HDL (Good), LDL (Bad) Cholesterol, and Triglycerides. American Heart Association.
  2. What Your Cholesterol Levels Mean. American Heart Association.
  3. Triglycerides: Why Do They Matter? Mayo Clinic.
  4. Familial Hypertriglyceridemia. MedlinePlus.
  5. Medication Induced Changes in Lipid and Lipoproteins. Endotext.
  6. Triglycerides and Heart Health. Cleveland Clinic.
  7. American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults and Kids. American Heart Association.
  8. Controlling Cholesterol With Statins. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  9. Fibric Acid Derivatives. Drugs.com.
Additional Sources